The Spanish Grand Prix had the second lowest ever figure for a European round on SSF1, an average of only 383,000 from 11:30 to 16:20. Only Belgium last year recorded lower.

Reach was also the second lowest ever for a race week, only 1.86 million.

Sort of makes me wonder if it has a lot to do with the perceived boredom that involves Catalunya. But the bit about Belgium recording lower is interesting. I wonder why that happened as I can see more of a reason for Spain being lower than Belgium.

-Less BBC coverage.
-Qualifying is now half a bore and isn't representative of the finishing order for the race.
-The loss of Jake and Brundle at BBC.
-90% of the grid struggle with tyres while the team that gets it right comfortably runs away with victory.
-The addition of Susie Perry on BBC.
-Mclaren threw away two titles last year and this year neither Button nor Lewis will be challenging for the title.

I can hardly think of any positives about this year, other than Vettel not dominating, that I can use to convince someone to start watching F1 in 2013.

Speaking personally I've missed (well, taped and watched later) a lot of Belgian Grands Prix in its late-August date. It's just not a weekend many people spend watching telly.

The odd thing is that last year the race was a week later than usual so it missed the August Bank Holiday weekend. You'd think more people would be home. But the combined viewing figures were still down compared to the BBC's viewing figures for Spa 2011 when it was held during the BH weekend.

The odd thing is that last year the race was a week later than usual so it missed the August Bank Holiday weekend. You'd think more people would be home. But the combined viewing figures were still down compared to the BBC's viewing figures for Spa 2011 when it was held during the BH weekend.

By August F1 has started to get boring. We're told Spa is a great circuit, but you'd never know it from what we see on the box. To tell the truth other than a few obvious parts of the circuit, it looks no different from many other tracks. As has been mentioned elsewhere, it's time FOM dumped the current tv crew and repositioned many of the cameras.

I do hope that sky soon decides to make its F1 Channel available on Freeview to kill off the Beeb's increasingly lacklustre offering.

I find it infuriating that both 'teams' have very good and very bad aspects and wish a dream team could be formed from the best bits of both.

Sky good - Brundle, Herbert, Easterby, The F1 Show, all the retro races they show in the evenings leading up to race weekends, Legends of F1 show, etc..

Sky bad, very baaaad - Croft (where's my shotgun?..), Hill, Pinky

Beeb good - Coulthard, Jordan (for comedy value), Lee

Beeb bad - Suzi, the impression I get that they'd rather be splurging my licence fee covering the disabled lesbian water polo from the African Games or somesuch rather than this enviro-unfriendly F1 thingy

I do hope that sky soon decides to make its F1 Channel available on Freeview to kill off the Beeb's increasingly lacklustre offering.

I find it infuriating that both 'teams' have very good and very bad aspects and wish a dream team could be formed from the best bits of both.

Sky good - Brundle, Herbert, Easterby, The F1 Show, all the retro races they show in the evenings leading up to race weekends, Legends of F1 show, etc..

Sky bad, very baaaad - Croft (where's my shotgun?..), Hill, Pinky

Beeb good - Coulthard, Jordan (for comedy value), Lee

Beeb bad - Suzi, the impression I get that they'd rather be splurging my licence fee covering the disabled lesbian water polo from the African Games or somesuch rather than this enviro-unfriendly F1 thingy

Please, Sky, put it on Freeview, and merge the best of both...

I wouldn't hold your breath. My view is that Sky took the F1 contract to do two things:

1. Increase Sky HD subscriptions

2. Increase Sky Sports subscriptions

My guess is that, instead of seeing more viewing options by way of a Freeview service, next year or the year after, you'll see less options because they'll limit it to Sky Sports subscribers only. Just a guess.

I wouldn't hold your breath. My view is that Sky took the F1 contract to do two things:

1. Increase Sky HD subscriptions

2. Increase Sky Sports subscriptions

My guess is that, instead of seeing more viewing options by way of a Freeview service, next year or the year after, you'll see less options because they'll limit it to Sky Sports subscribers only. Just a guess.

You are probably right, but because the Beeb has clearly lost enthusiasm for it, and it shows, I suspect Bernie/CVC wouldn't be at all displeased to see Sky offer its F1 stuff on freeview. I'm not sure when this weird show-half-the-season contract of the Beeb's runs out, but I do hope it's soon. Sky's race coverage (and all the extra progs through the weekday evenings) has turned out to be a lot, lot better than I anticipated when it began (I was seriously worried at the time). If only something 'nasty' could befall Crofty...

I don't think we'll see Sky offer the channel for free on Freeview anytime soon as they don't need to. Unless CVC put pressure on them to do so and even then they own the rights and don't have to change anything about the contract to suit Bernie. I think we'll see this same format continue for another five seasons until the contract is up and then it'll be CVC who don't re-new the Sky contract. Its plain to see less people are watching now than two years ago and its only decreases further year on year. I do think the BBC are looking for a way to off load the coverage at the next contract end, and that would be a shame as they still offer the best coverage as far as I am concerned. I think Suzi is settling into her role well and DC is a lot better now than he was when alongside Brundle. The 'Old Spa' segment DC did with Hamilton was brilliant and I think its the BBC's film productive side that makes their nostalgic segments very good indeed. They seem to be very good at setting the mood to go racing and its a shame more fans are not tuning in overall these days.

Be it casual fans or channel hoppers, you are not going to get interest and potential new fans without the sport being on terrestrial TV IMO. I am a little more distracted these days and not as upset about all this than I used to be. I'm just glad our predictions are being realised in just season 2.

In light of all the recent "Vettel's dominance is turning viewers off etc" and it not being a close Championship compared to last years, it would be interesting to see a side by side comparison of the last 4 races vs the same 4 races of 2012. i.e.

the sky contract will be renewed, and i think it will make its way onto other platforms but as a paid channel, also Sky will keep the channel as part of the HD pack as people pay for HD and its a good way of bringing more people to sky.

Interesting the drop off late season, no doubt that is down to the Championship being one-sided. The fact that the races in the first half took place in the summer also confirms this (more people watch TV in the winter), Although races from both halves of the season were shown live in the early hours. I also speculate the new TV set-up threw some people off at the start of 2012, some people are creatures of habit, Now BBC is more use to its new format, viewers do not have to adjust their habits as much.

The increase on 2012 is seen in other sports as well, Darts for example saw a increase from 2012. The reason for this was that in 2012 it was The Olympics and European Championship Football. Still, they are healthy numbers give the context.

I think if Lewis or Jenson fight for the title next year, they will increase further in 2014.

What's a back-of-the-napkin calculation for how much money Sky is making off that many viewers?

Very little, given that most of them where probably existing Sky HD and/or Sky Sport viewers - I doubt that F1 itself would bring in that many extra Sky subscribers, other than the few hardened 'F1 lunatics' represented on forums such as this one.The only gain to Sky would be those forced to add Sky Sports to compensate for losing free F1 on HD if they changed contract during the year or a few adding Sky Sports to an existing package - and I wonder how many people would fall into that category given the extra cost of Sky Sports just for 10 extra races?

- every race so far this year has recorded a drop on their equivalent 2013 number

- Bahrain and Chinese GP's see lowest numbers since 2007

- overall average so far looks to be the lowest for the first four rounds since 2007

This doesn't appear to be the picture everywhere - USA has recorded big gains, but alarming numbers nevertheless. A lot of factors for UK numbers:

- terrible scheduling for Bahrain

- apathy towards the current broadcasting set up still

- no big 'storyline' to build around, multi-21 had a lot of influence on the Malaysia number

- sound potentially turning people off?

Could be other things, but either way the statements above are fairly horrific. The stable European timeslots will give a clear indicator of whether this is just a blip, or whether F1 is losing fans in the UK.

- every race so far this year has recorded a drop on their equivalent 2013 number

- Bahrain and Chinese GP's see lowest numbers since 2007

- overall average so far looks to be the lowest for the first four rounds since 2007

This doesn't appear to be the picture everywhere - USA has recorded big gains, but alarming numbers nevertheless. A lot of factors for UK numbers:

- terrible scheduling for Bahrain

- apathy towards the current broadcasting set up still

- no big 'storyline' to build around, multi-21 had a lot of influence on the Malaysia number

- sound potentially turning people off?

Could be other things, but either way the statements above are fairly horrific. The stable European timeslots will give a clear indicator of whether this is just a blip, or whether F1 is losing fans in the UK.

Was going to make a follow up post, but was side tracked. Taking into account Sky's longer programme lengths for 2013...

Australia

- 2013 - 3.57m

- 2014 - 3.47m

Malaysia

- 2013 - 4.92m

- 2014 - 4.09m

Bahrain

- 2013 - 4.40m

- 2014 - 3.38m

China

- 2013 - 4.54m

- 2014 - 3.55m

Interesting and similar to the German ratings. They are also down by about 1 million compared to 2013. China had the lowest ratings of any F1 Grand Prix since RTL started to broadcast F1 (more then 20 years!!).